Link-up cable
From Sega Retro
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| Link-up cable | |||||||||||||||
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| Made for: Sega Mega Drive | |||||||||||||||
| Manufacturer: Unknown | |||||||||||||||
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The Link-up cable was a third-party peripheral designed by Technopop and sold through Accolade as a mail order for owners of the Sega Mega Drive game Zero Tolerance it was designed specially for. it is similar in function to the Taisen Cable for the Sega Saturn.
Function
Like the Taisen Cable and similar serial cables designed for Sony's PlayStation and Atari's Jaguar, the Link-up Cable was used for linking two consoles to play multiplayer games without using split-screen modes. the advantage of this was better game performance (as only one view had to be rendered by each console) but was costly, as each player had to have their own TV and copy of the game. unlike those consoles however, instead of using a dedicated port on the back of the console, the Link-up cabel would be plugged in the second controller port of each Mega Drive, while port 1 was used for each players control pad. Instructions on using the cable were given in the Zero Tolerance instruction manual.
Compatable games
Zero Tolerance is the only released game known to work with the cable. Beyond Zero Tolerance had it been released, may of been the only 32X game to have Link-up cable support. The cable will not work on a Genesis Nomad
Legacy
Today the original cable is very rare, as it could only be obtained by sending off a special mail order card included with Zero Tolerance. It is possible however to hand-craft one using two DB-9 female plugs and wire with minimal soldering skills required. [2]